The loop is the unsteady cornerstone of contemporary technology, both a basic structure of computer code and the physical shape of reels of film and tape that continue to inform conceptual understanding of digital media. The loop is also a metaphor for time—a cycle that returns to the same disasters again and again—that opposes the sunnier notion of time as a river running forward. The Wheel of the Devil, a screening of video- and internet-based art presented by MTAA and critic Ed Halter, promises a dark reflection on those ideas, which they collapse in the formula “while (history) { history = true; }.” The Friday night program will feature loops by JODI, Rick Silva, Brody Condon, Jon Rafman, Deidre LaCarte, Michael Sarff, MTAA, Hayley A. Silverman, Mathwrath, Chris Coy, Michael Bell-Smith, jimpunk, and more. The first loop will be launched at 8, and the last will be cut off at 10.

Combine a gif of an irate Sean Connery, an audio loop of his comment "You're the Man Now, Dog" from the film Finding Forrester, and bold, zooming text of the same statement and you have the simple recipe behind the popular internet meme http://www.yourethemannowdog.com/. Created by Max Goldberg, the site became a sensation in the early 2000's, and it soon lead to numerous spoofs. Goldberg began mirroring the sites in an effort to keep track of these rudimentary creations, and, eventually overwhelmed by the quantity of spin-offs, Goldberg developed a platform for YTMNDs, http://ytmnd.com/. For the current exhibition "YTMND" at Dallas gallery And/Or, Paul Slocum and Guthrie Lonergan have assembled some of their favorite YTMNDs and installed them on monitors placed in metal shelving units. A short essay "Picture. Sound. Text." by Lonergan on the significance of the genre's unapologetically lowbrow humor accompanies the show. Lonergan argues that the YTMNDs embrace and celebrate the reality that the "Internet turns culture into small pieces of shit." Regardless of one's opinion on the role of the Internet in the advancement of shittiness, the YTMNDs culled by Lonergan and Slocum are funny, weird, random, surreal and unquestionably entertaining, proving that YTMNDs bring something to the table.